Doctor Who #1033: Once, Upon Time

"There is no greater battle than this. The battle between Time and Space and Time shall not lose. Time shall never surrender to Space. No planetary mass however sophisticated can imprison the force of Time. This planet, this construction is not just a fallacy, not just futile hubris, it is heresy."

TECHNICAL SPECS: Flux Part 3. First aired Nov.14 2021.

IN THIS ONE... The TARDIS crew (and Vinder) bounce back and forth through time and each other's lives.

REVIEW: And back to the larger story... with a vengeance! I'll certainly give the episode points for its boldness in telling its recaps as Quantum Leap vignettes where the leads play the roles of other characters. But while the episode's function is to drop exposition about various elements - the Flux, the Ravages, the Angels so Yaz knows what they are, etc. - it also does contain a complete adventure, the Doctor's mission to "fix" time by giving the Mouri (linguistically related to the Greek Fates Homer calls the Moirai) a chance to refill their seats and stabilize it. Though it seems the damage has been done and so the larger story continues. It also introduces a couple characters who will remain relevant.

The first is Bel (named after Belfast? because another accent for the ear to parse) on a mission of love, looking for her partner in the collapsing universe, through lack of opposition now divided as spoils by the Doctor's main enemies. Her only companion a baby monitor that communicates via emoji technology (see Smile), and as we learn in the episode's dying embers, is Vinder's unborn child. Bel is cool and I'm a little frustrated at how she and Vinder seem more important here than they will ultimately prove to be. More on this when we discuss Part 6. The other new character is the Grand Serpent, played by the poor man's Benedict Cumberbatch, Craig Parkinson, the slimy tyrant Vinder was assigned to, whose evil deeds Vinder reported, which in turn landed him on Outpost Rose as punishment. An obvious shot across the bow at current-day politics, Vinder is Captain America having sword an oath a constitution, not any one person. There is SO MUCH going on in this episode that I'll admit I did not recognize the Grand Serpent when he shows up again later. I guess I spent all my brain power trying to assimilate Vinder's world, which was, on the whole, less interesting than what was happening with the other characters. There's also the confusing notion of making the Serpent's new allies gold-skinned aliens when the Mouri are also gold-skinned. I thought there was a connection (which might explain his turning up on Earth if they are a time-active species), but it seems not. Like I said, way too much going on.

The crux of the episode, of course, is the Doctor's own story. Lots of temporal-babble here, but to save Yaz from the Swarm's killer touch, she throws herself and her friends into the "corrupted" time stream and hides them (and herself) into their own memories while another part of her parlays with the Mouri and tries to contact her companions (the "split Doctor" pulls a sort of uncontrolled Scaroth here and in later episodes). Whitaker's Doctor has to talk to herself a lot to help explain things, though that initial POV where we see how quickly she calculates what to do is a good bit. Her own memory takes us back to her last mission with Division, with Jo Martin showing up (squeee!) in reflections, glitches and internal monologues. A nice touch: In the past time frame, the Doctor wears a reverse of her coat, dark on the outside with light lapels. The Quantum Leap effect keeps us from realizing one of the Fugitive Doctor's companions (played by Dan, ha) is Karvanista, who we know was a Division agent. This last mission is to end the (first) siege of the Temple of Atropos by the Ravages (with consequences we saw in episode 1 and a solution offering itself for the second siege). It also introduces the Passenger, a being "bigger on the inside", a form said to be banned from our dimension, which holds hostages in the hundreds of thousands (Diane being one of the current occupants, but not in the memory, obviously). I'm gonna go ahead and say this is forbidden Time Lord technology the Ravages have gotten their hands on. Before being whisked back to her body in the present time frame, she is summoned by a woman credited as Awsok, who I called the Gardener before the final reveal. There she is told that the Flux was made to destroy the universe and that it's somehow her fault, throwing up even more questions. If the point was to get fan communities abuzz with theories, I think it worked, though it perhaps left the less zealous among us behind in a confusion. It's a double-edged sword, however, because if the theories are more interesting than what you've planned... Well, we'll take stock in three episodes' time.

As for the two companions, there's much less meat on the bone. With Yaz, I get that there's less to tell, even though I wouldn't call her the most developed character in the world. We see her back in police uniform, and playing video games with her sister, but otherwise, it's all about having a Weeping Angel stalk her through time and set up the next episode. Adds some nice chills, at any rate. Dan, who DOES need more back story, fares the worst. He's hopping through dates with Diane, we learn he almost got married once but was left at the altar, and that's about it. A meeting with a laser-toting Williamson keeps the time tunnels in play, but does little for Dan's character.

THEORIES: How can Time be a place? The Ravages do call it a construction, a fallacy, and heresy, so like the Passenger, I'd be tempted to call this a Time Lord construct. One older theory is that Gallifrey was the template for the rest of the universe (explaining how so many planets and people are Earth/human and therefore Gallifrey/Time Lord), which is why time-active species tried to invade Gallifrey, to change the template to their own. But what if shores up this proper history of the universe isn't on Gallifrey itself? What if they built the Temple of Atropos (Swarm credits it to Division, which is an at-least-partly Time Lord institution) to maintain history? There's a mention of the Dark Times which predate Time Lord history, back when magic was a thing and space-time was more fluid. Atropos "sets" Time and regulates the universe's physical laws. As per the dialog, this was achieved by having Time surrender to Space through the Mouri, thus anchoring the Web of Time. The Mouri evoke the chronovore from The Time Monster and could have evolved from that form (or vice-versa). One is a creature that feeds on time, the other doesn't seem to but certainly has a relationship with it. And for all the talk of the Dark Times being "before" the Time Lords, it also contains stories of the same Time Lords fighting vampires, Carrionites and the Racnoss, AND we know early Time Lord history is full of lies, as per The Timeless Child.

REWATCHABILITY: Medium-High - A microcosm of the Flux story arc itself, there may be too much going on for a single viewing. Confusing? Maybe. Intriguing? Definitely.